When they asked Muhammad Ali to give them a poem, he offered up two words. “Me. We.” Just two simple words. But oh, how much they said. ‘Me We’ is a poem about one man’s transition from one to the many, singularity to plurality, and selfishness to altruism.
It’s a reminder to me, how little it actually takes. To make someone’s day. To let them know they are not alone. To give them hope. A smile. It’s a small space from me to we, easily traveled, if we simply remember to take the step.
When I think of my best moments. They’ve always been with someone. It makes me wonder, does anything really happen unless we share it? I’m not sure. I’m not willing to take the chance.
I remember early on, speaking to a group of young school children. I was humbled that they knew the answers to their own questions. After a reading, one student asked why I didn’t use any names, just he, she, they… Without missing a beat a little girl raised her hand and said, “Because it could be anyone.” I’m still smiling. The answer remains the same, this movement from singularity to plurality. We can all do it, take the path, from Me to We.
I remember exactly where she bought it — the faux fur jacket. It was at an event at Corazon in downtown Minneapolis. While I was signing books and selling paintings, my mom was trying on the clothes also offered. This was our environment! It was our friend Frederick who gave her the ooh-la-la in his best Minnesota accent. Of course she bought it.
I have that jacket now. For me, it’s not just fashion, but a time capsule of pure joy. A way to embrace the moment of art and books and friends. Where compliments flowed so freely. Swooping through the air like birds hopping on the wind. And didn’t it all feel like flying?! For that was the true fashion of these events. These gatherings of being yourself. These celebrations of creation and kindness.
When I first showed her some of my mom’s things, I didn’t just pass them on hangers. Of course I put them on. I am my mother’s daughter. She exclaimed that my mom was “à la mode” – so fashionable. I didn’t have her words for it — but I’ve always known.
I flutter in it still. The coat. The kindness. The compliment. The joy. The love. Ever in fashion. Ever à la mode!
I don’t remember the first thing I put into the drawer. For the longest time, I thought it was just a facade. It was stuck, so I never forced it after trying once. I sat in front of it. One day I think it moved with my knee, so I tried again. Et voila! I laugh when I open it now. It’s completely full — I suppose the saying is true, it goes little by little, then all at once.
I suppose it’s true for everything. Life and love. I don’t remember getting older. I write every day about my “little by little”s, but I don’t recall a time when my heart wasn’t full.
It’s so delightful. When people get into your “all at once.” You can’t remember not loving them. I know you’ve felt it — people with whom you are ever in mid-conversation. No matter the time or distance. No matter the rise and fall of life’s breath. They are ever with you. Ever filling you.
My knee brushes against the drawer that I didn’t know I had, and I smile. Love will always find a way in, and stay.
The bisous is nice — a kiss on both cheeks — but for me, it will never replace a good hug. I have the imprints on my heart. I can tell you the progression through the years of my grandmother’s hug. The first I can remember were mostly knees. Then I was sticky faced against her apron (maybe because of me, or maybe because of the apron). She was pillowy. And welcoming. Pulling me in so close, I was almost behind her. And then there was the angled structure of my grandfather. Firm and elbowed. Offering the blessed assurance of “I’ll be here, strong, a foot in each furrow.” And then there was my mother. I knew every inch of her. Where my head could rest. Where my mind could wander. The home of every embrace. The feel of each blouse and sweater, hugged so closely, as if to wear the same. And didn’t we wear them together, our sleeved hearts, through every fashion lay-a-wayed and purchased.
This is to be hugged.
It’s not our culture here in France. But it is happening. Slowly. And isn’t it beautiful, that without pattern, knowledge or language even, we can teach each other how we need to be loved.
Ever since I painted his picture, Dominique’s cousin, he has hugged the stuffing out of me. Such a joyful surprise from this man of French measure. Nearly lifting me off the ground. A melding of imprints. Strength and joy and tenderness. All the arms around me now, I paint my way home.
It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough people to feed. Yet she never seemed to mind when neighbors (neighbors whose houses could not even be seen beyond the fields) popped over at the first waft of the oven’s scent. Her wide knuckled hands waved off the intrusion and welcomed them to the kitchen table.
On the rare occasion that her lap was open, (usually during Days of Our Lives), I would sit and twirl her thinning wedding band. Still able to move at the base of her finger, I knew she would never be able to get it over the middle knuckle. “Did it shrink?” I asked. “What?” “Your ring.” She let out a laugh that sounded like a leak of a hose. “No, my fingers got bigger.” I was shushed to listen to Ma and Pa Horton on the tv.
It makes me happy to think it wasn’t because of the work. I know now, it was the wave of the welcoming. Her hands, just like her heart, got bigger with every visit.
I felt it yesterday as I passed some cookies fresh from the oven over the fence to our neighbor. Her five year old granddaughter was visiting. She said her love for the cookies was bigger than the sun and the moon together! I felt the Elsie-ing of my hands and heart. What a welcome feeling!
There is a little patch of pink flowers near the entrance of my studio. When I enter in the morning, or early afternoon. They welcome me, wide open. I don’t have a clock beside me. I paint with the light. When it becomes too hard to see, I wash my brushes, and call it a day. I gently walk past the sleeping patch of pink.
Such is the nature of all things, I suppose. I’ve always done my best thinking in the daylight. My grandma told me it would be true. My mother too. As I buried my face under quilts and covers, “Things will seem better in the light,” they said, and they were right.
I’m reminded daily. Even the flowers know when to shut it down. So I try to do the same. When it becomes too dark — as those creeping winter thoughts can become — I petal myself in, and think of how the pink remains, it’s just time for a little rest.
The morning arrives with all its promise, just as promised, and I reach high into the light.
There is an older couple on YouTube that reviews restaurants and bakeries. Normally I can’t swipe away fast enough. I really don’t care what people eat. I only stopped one day when I saw they were giving a rating of 14 out of 10. It made me smile. How rare to see such positivity!
I don’t know their names to direct you. They show up on my feed now because I stop when I see them. It’s nothing new, this “power of attraction.” I mention it more as a reminder to myself.
When I first started my own art business, I gave myself two rules. Pay attention and surround yourself with the best people. It worked. It still does. And not just for business. Whether you are involved or not, positivity will always lift you. Everything else is quicksand.
I tried a new recipe for bread yesterday. We had it for breakfast. With a little French butter (a lot actually), lavender honey for me, my homemade apricot jam for Dominique — I give it a 14! I’m still smiling.
We had a saying in Minnesota — “If you don’t like the weather, stick around, it will change…” My mother and I, during our times of discontent, winter or not, we made it our own.
I found her mid tears one day, sitting on the edge of her bed. Nose red. Eyes puffy. Kleenex in hand. Catching me, catching her (and weren’t we always doing that for each other) she breathed in deeply, wiped her face, stood tall, creased her pants legs with her palms, and simply said, “Stick around…” We both smiled. It was ours from then on.
Oh, I can still get myself lost in the seemingly forever of things. But I give myself reminders. A gratitude clicker. A new page in the sketchbook. An alternate recipe. Perhaps it’s too literal, but I’ve even recently made stickers. As I placed the first one next to the actual painting, I thought, “Stick around…” It still makes me smile.
I know the speed of time. I know how foolish it is to waste it with worry. So I place the stickers in sight. Even the stickers won’t last forever. Only another moment. But I look at them and smile, because in a moment of happiness is always a good place to catch yourself.
It seemed there was always one kid in every class who believed they could fly. Never testing it out on the monkey bars or a tree branch, but going straight to the barn roof. For me, bravery has always been more of a staircase, a ladder. Something to build upon, daily. I started with books. Each a step in confidence and curiosity. Rungs of empathy and encouragement. And when the words I needed weren’t at hand, I penciled them through my heart. Writing not because I had the answers, but to find a way to them, and even more often, in all of my hopeful confusion, finding a way to simply rise above. Word by word.
That’s why I’ve always trusted people who read. Praised the teachers and librarians. Befriended those in the nook. Traded the bookmarks and the reviews. Sniffed the inside of spines for fuel. Shared the secret views of every “barn roof” and above. Knowing that we’ve always had the ability to rise up. To get beyond. To fly.
It’s so often the case. Looking back. Seeing that we did actually bear the unbearable.
On my walks I frequently listen to the podcast “How I built this” — delightful stories of success in business, arts and industry. All with their own challenges. (No story is complete without them.) I suppose just enough time has passed — I’ve noticed a large percentage of the stories began during Covid. People suddenly had the time and the urgency to create something. And it’s beautiful to hear the good that can come.
It was during Covid that she decided to learn how to play the ukulele. Not the obvious choice, but as they say, we all have to make our own kind of music. And she has it now, the thing I think we all look to do when going through something — make the proof that we did in fact survive — And didn’t just survive, but thrived! We awakened the “good that can come.” She not only woke it up, but put it to music.
The bird book is my ukulele, my “How I built this.” And the most glorious thing is when our stories merge. When her music seeps on to my page, into the bird song, I know that we are thriving. I know that together, no matter what, we can do anything.
I suppose the real heroes don’t need the “proof.” But still it’s nice to see. It’s nice to hear. All the good that can come.
